


Builder of Man

by SideshowStarlet



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Builder Harry, Child in Adult Body, Discovers magical powers before Hogwarts, Eighties culture, Gen, Independent Harry, Metamorphmagus Harry Potter, References to Communism, References to Drugs (OC), Will add more tags as series progresses, financial abuse, handyman harry, preHogwarts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 04:31:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17379611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SideshowStarlet/pseuds/SideshowStarlet
Summary: Harry is a Metamorphmagus who can change his physical age. When the Dursleys discover this, they send him out to earn his keep, making Harry pay rent to live in the cupboard, as well as charging him for using Vernon's hand-me-downs. Harry gets a job as a laborer and quickly discovers his knack for building and fixing. The Dursleys walk a fine line between their desire to extort as much money as possible from Harry and Harry's vile Aunt Petunia's desperation to keep him living at Number Four. Meanwhile, Harry builds a life separate from the Dursleys and very different from what Albus Dumbledore expected. Title is a reference to a quote discussed later in the story.





	Builder of Man

**Author's Note:**

> This is a plot bunny that would not go away. Constructive criticism is welcome!

Harry had never liked being small. Of course, being short is an occupational hazard of being a five year-old, but he was even smaller and skinnier than other children his age. It got in the way of reaching the middle of the table when he was supposed to be laying out the dinner things, reaching the sink when washing the dishes, and fighting back when his much larger cousin Dudley hit him. 

Of course, his small size made it easier for his relatives to stick him in a cupboard. That didn't stop his aunt and uncle from bemoaning the limited amount of work Harry was physically capable of doing. 

Looking back, Harry supposed an expert would see his childhood- the unreasonable expectations, the lack of parental warmth, and his guardians' unreasonable reactions to normal childhood incompetence- and say that it was natural for him to grow up too quickly, to be old for his age. Said expert probably wouldn't expect the boy to grow about two feet, a decent set of biceps, and light stubble on his chin literally overnight. 

Upon opening her nephew's cupboard door one seemingly normal Sunday morning, Petunia's admonishments for Harry to get his lazy self up and start his morning chores died before they could reach her mouth. Instead, it was a shrill scream which woke Harry, along with half the neighborhood, that morning. Harry automatically reached over to put on his glasses, only to find they were too small for his head. He tried simply peering through the lenses without wearing them, only to find his vision blurring. When he took the glasses away, he found that his vision was perfectly clear without them. He could make out every detail of his aunt's horrified face and the garishly decorated living room behind her. 

He had to hand it to his uncle. Less than 20 minutes after Vernon was woken by his wife's scream and appeared downstairs, his uncle had deduced that the young man wearing his nephew's raggedy pajamas was the Potter boy. He swiftly concluded that, whatever... freakishness had caused the boy's rapid growth, he was now a grown man. As such, there was no need for him to live on their charity any longer. Hadn't they always told him that he was out the moment he turned 18? 

Harry may have been shocked by the swiftness of his uncle's thinking, but the man's conclusion was to be expected. What was surprising, though, was the fact that Aunt Petunia laid a hand on her husband's arm, stopping him in the middle of his tirade. "He has to stay, Vernon," she said. 

Vernon turned his angry gaze from Harry to his wife. After a few seconds of staring at Petunia's terrified face, his glare turned to a puzzled look. "We never wanted him," Vernon reminded his wife, as though Harry weren't standing in front of him. "This is the last bit of... abnormality we ever have to deal with. Decided to go out with a bang, did you?" he asked, raising his voice on the last sentence and returning his glare to Harry. 

"Really, Vernon! Go out with a bang, indeed! Don't give him any... ideas." 

Vernon's glare intensified, as if the very mention of a bang would inspire Harry to cause an explosion that could only be prevented by Vernon's careful surveillance. For his part, Harry gazed, fascinated, at his much larger hands and feet. "Petunia." Vernon lowered his voice, speaking in tones that would have sounded pleading coming from another man. Vernon's voice merely sounded slightly less aggressive than usual. "He looks too old to be the boy they dumped on us. They'll never know- we can be rid of him forever!" 

"He still has that horrid scar," Petunia pointed out, referring to the jagged cut Harry had on his forehead for as long as he could remember. "And he'll always have that... freakishness. They'll track him down, eventually and bring him right back to us, and we'll be stuck with him again. They track down perfectly normal children every year and turn them into freaks. Think how much easier it will be for them to find a boy as abnormal as he is. We'll have gained nothing, while exposing Dudders to more of that crowd." 

Vernon harrumphed and opened and closed his mouth several times, as if trying and failing to argue against this. Eventually, he seemed to give up on that line of thought. "You're not living off us," Vernon told Harry. "You'll get a job and pay for your own upkeep. You'll not take food off our table, and I expect you to pay rent every month."   
Harry's head spun. What kind of job could he possibly get? His aunt and uncle had told him for as long as he could remember that he was a worthless, good-for-nothing scrounger just like his parents. Maybe he could get money from that Welfare State he had often heard his uncle complain about. According to Uncle Vernon, Welfare gave money to useless blokes all over the country. He hoped it wasn't too far away. He didn't have any money for the bus. Perhaps he could fix up the broken bike Dudley had outgrown and ride it to the Welfare State. He wished he could simply live there instead of with the Dursleys. 

They spent the day planning. Vernon had balked at the idea of getting Harry an entry-level job in Grunnings, refusing to betray to his coworkers even a hint of his familial relationship (however slight) to Harry. Eventually, Vernon and Petunia agreed that Vernon would get Harry a job as a day laborer with one of the building crews who used Grunning's drills. Harry was then sent outside to mow the lawn, pull weeds, prune the rosebushes, and repaint the patio furniture in order to "practice working like a man," as Vernon put it. The fact that Vernon himself never did that sort of work, preferring instead to hire someone, was not commented on. 

Once Harry got used to his longer limbs, he enjoyed working in his new body. His newfound strength led to him working more quickly than he ever had before. He no longer had to deal with clunky glasses bouncing against his nose. He had finally outgrown all of Dudley's hand-me-downs and was now dressed in one of Vernon's old T-shirts from when he played soccer in his college days. Vernon had given him a shirt, a pair of boxers, jeans, and socks, assigning a monetary amount to each one and adding it up in a notebook he began using to calculate how much money his nephew owed him. Harry was also provided an old pair of Petunia's tennis shoes, which added a few extra pounds to his tally. They were a bit big-needing balled-up newspapers to fill in the gap-, but she was the only one in the family who came close to wearing his shoe size.

Harry had just finished all of his chores and was using his T-shirt to wipe the sweat off his face when the next door neighbor called him over. At first, Harry looked over his shoulder, thinking she must have been talking to someone else. Seeing nobody there, Harry wandered over, puzzled. "You do a damn good job- I was watching. I need my lawn needs mowed, the outside of the house repainted, and the roof fixed," the old woman said. "How much do you charge for that?"

Harry was about to answer honestly- that he wasn't getting paid anything- when he remembered the money that he owed Vernon. His stomach growled, and he remembered what Vernon said about him having to buy his own food now. How much did food cost, anyway? "Umm... five pounds, fifty pence," naming the amount Vernon had written in his book, "and... uh... lunch," he answered uncertainly, as his stomach growled again. 

The woman gaped at him. "For all that? Is that some sort of senior citizen discount?" she asked. 

Was that too little? Harry had no idea how much he was supposed to charge. Suddenly, he remembered one of Vernon's many rants about waiters and waitresses expecting hard-working citizens to tip them. Harry had been confused about the people who brought food to the table wanting to be tipped over, but he knew better than to ask questions. Fortunately, he eventually picked up enough information from Vernon's rather long-winded tirade to learn that "tipping" referred to giving someone money out of your own pocket in addition to the money that the person's company was already generous enough to pay them. Harry knew that Vernon highly disapproved of this practice, but Vernon wasn't here. Besides, who knew how much money he would need later on? 

"I also get tipped," Harry added, hoping he was saying it right. 

The woman chuckled. "Well, we'll see how you do, then," she said. "Let's have a bit of lunch, first, shall we?" The old woman, whose name, Harry learned was Adelaide Kemp, set out sandwiches, apple slices, crisps, and lemonade. Harry was enjoying the meal until a few bites in, when Ms. Kemp asked him for his name.   
Harry paused for a second on the pretense of chewing a mouthful of food. Everyone knew that Harry Potter was Vernon and Petunia's delinquent nephew. With the stories Petunia had spread about the boy stealing, vandalising the play park, and uprooting rosebushes, Ms. Kemp would surely kick him out if she knew his true identity. Then where would he get the money to pay his uncle?   
He needed a secret identity. 

"Marx," he said, naming a man he had never met, but whom he had often heard his uncle blame for the amount of pinko commies in the government. He reached over and shook the lady's hand, just as he had seen his uncle do when he had his boss or colleagues over for dinner. "My name's Marx." 

Ms. Kemp shook his hand. Marx beamed. Vernon had always said he would never be able to get a job. Yet here he was, doing business like his uncle. One day, he would do better than Uncle Vernon.   
His hunger satiated, he went out to Ms. Kemp's yard and completed the chores with an efficiency he never would have thought possible. He had learned how to use a lawn mower just that morning, but his muscle memory was much better than it had been when he was physically five years old. He kept looking down, astonished at the increased height between him and the ground. He couldn't believe it, but his increased size was indisputable proof- he was now the man that Vernon always claimed that Dudley would be one day. 

Fixing the roof was difficult, but Marx assured himself that this was what his uncle called "Men's work," and he was indisputably a man now. He carefully climbed up the ladder and onto the roof. Oddly, even holding a box with a hammer, nails, and new shingles, it was much easier to balance with this larger body than with the smaller. 

Marx quickly noticed several shingles that were torn apart. Cautiously, he crouched over and used the claw hand of the hammer to pull up the old nails on the damaged shingle. It still wouldn't come off. There was an undamaged shingle above it holding the old tile in place. Thinking quickly, Marx removed the nails from the shingle above the damaged tile. Careful not to damage the good tile, Marx pulled the edge up. The old shingle easily slid out from underneath. Marx slid a new shingle in and hammered it into place. He then hammered the shingle above it back into place. It took a while for Marx to figure out what he was supposed to do, but once he did, the work went by quickly. Marx walked along the roof, testing his weight against the new shingles and checking that he didn't leave any damaged ones. Satisfied with his work, he climbed down and started repainting the house. 

When Harry... Marx (yes, he liked that name much better)... finished the chores, Ms. Kemp handed him the requested five pounds and fifty pence, along with a twenty-pound tip and leftover food in several Tupperware containers. Marx hid the extra twenty pounds in his sock, slipping it into the arch of his foot. He examined the food in the tupperware. Chicken, fresh fruit, carrots, and broccoli. Normally, the larger than normal lunch would tide him over for a whole day, but Marx found himself inexplicably hungry again. He scarfed it all down before heading back to the Dursleys. 

"Took you long enough," Vernon said from in front of the television. 

"I did some work for the neighbor," Marx explained. "She gave me the money I owe you." 

Vernon took the notes without looking at him. "Wash those clothes- you'll need them for work tomorrow. You'll be doing the rest of the laundry while you're at it. Your aunt will show you how to use the machine and the iron, so pay attention. I expect you to have 200 pounds by the July 1st for rent. Now beat it." 

Petunia balked at the idea of Marx doing laundry while naked, so Vernon grudgingly sent him off to shower and provided another one of his university hand-me-downs. He jotted down another amount owed in his book, a few pounds for the clothes and another pound for the water Marx was using. Harry put on the clean clothes, transferring the twenty pounds to his sock again. 

It was late at night when Marx completed the laundry to Petunia's exacting standards. He stumbled tiredly off to his cupboard and passed out on his cot.


End file.
